ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the same people whose work on Roman remains led them to develop a sober sense of anachronism also enjoyed a series of passionately imaginative responses to the past. Peter Burke mentions the Lake Garda trip as part of a discussion of how "the sense of history began to affect Italian Renaissance art", showing how Andrea Mantegna adapted Roman remains for his historical tableaux. An interest in antiquity was not necessarily problematic – see Felice Feliciano's happy marriage of Christian devotion and Roman titles in his worship at Garda – but Pomponio Leto's group of devotees invited suspicions of paganism and sodomy. It is easy to see why a casual observer might have detected pagan sympathies. In the same way as Julius Caesar encouraged ancient Romans to believe that he was descended from Venus, people across Europe claimed connections with ancient mythological founders.
